NEIGHBOURS campaigning against a proposed children's home have failed to win backing from planners.

Rossendale councillors were being told today there were no grounds for refusing a request to convert the farmhouse at Higher Greens Farm, Greens Lane, Stacksteads, into a home for four children and two staff. Neighbours sent 25 letters and a 400-signature petition objecting to the plan and also tried to enlist police support.

But a report to today's planning sub-committee says many of the residents' objections have nothing to do with planning regulations.

The scheme would see the farmhouse used to house four children placed in local authority care because of family breakdown.

Rossendale Police, who were consulted by residents and the council, have commented on their experiences with two other care homes in the Valley but planners say these homes - one used as a conventional children's home and the other to house youngsters referred by the courts - are not the same. Residents say the farmhouse, on a narrow country lane, is an unsuitable site for a children's home and will have an adverse social effect on the neighbourhood, but chief planning officer Philip Cunliffe says the objections have nothing to do with a planning application.

A report to the sub-committee says the home would generate no more traffic than a large family would. Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service is insisting that the lane must be wide enough to accommodate a fire engine.

The applicants have told council staff they would run the home in a similar way to a conventional family home and Mr Cunliffe says as a result, residential amenity would not be harmed.

Councillors are advised to impose seven conditions including a restriction on the number of children, dismantling a boundary wall to widen the lane and a clause preventing an adjacent barn being used as an extension to the house.

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